Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola says he does not know how ready his players are for the restart of the Premier League and the flood of matches to come.
Second-placed City play Arsenal, managed by Guardiola’s former assistant Mikel Arteta, at the Etihad on Wednesday.
City then host Burnley next Monday, travel down to Chelsea the following Thursday and across to Newcastle United on the Sunday.
“The way we are right now...we don’t know. If you ask me how is the team, I don’t know. Tomorrow we will see how is the level of the team,” Guardiola told reporters on a Zoom call.
“I think we are ready to play one game. But three days after another one and four days after another one. We are not ready, not just Man City, all teams.”
Guardiola said his players were in good shape but expressed concern that they had only three weeks of group training to get ready. Clubs in Germany and Spain had five or six.
“All Premier League teams have three. We know it is not enough but it is what it is,” said the Spaniard.
In Arteta, Guardiola will be facing an old friend and while foes on the pitch, he hoped he would have time to catch up afterwards.
Both have suffered over the past months, Guardiola losing his mother to the Covid-19 pandemic while Arteta caught the disease himself and had to self-isolate.
“So excited to see him... he knows absolutely everything of us, he was an incredibly important part of our success in the last years, he helped us to be who we are,” said Guardiola.
“We sent a message about one hour and a half ago...It was about the wine we are going to drink after the game if social distance allows.”
Guardiola was also asked whether City defender Kyle Walker’s much publicised lockdown breaches would affect his chances of playing.
The manager said Walker would be judged by performances on the pitch.
“I judge my players with what happens on the pitch,” said the Spaniard.
“I think Kyle made a brave statement about what happened in this period. The club spoke with him. And what I want is the best for him and especially his family. As a human being that always goes first than the football player.”
Walker said last month he felt “harassed” by some of the British media after reports he broke restrictions on three occasions to visit family.
Amid the build-up to Wednesday’s restart, Arsenal’s Arteta sought to focus on the future, saying it is the club’s responsibility to convince captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to stay on.
The Gabon international, whose deal ends in June 2021, has scored 61 goals in 97 appearances since joining from Borussia Dortmund in 2018 but has yet to lift any major silverware with Arsenal and is yet to sign a new contract.
Arsenal were in great form before the three-month pause, however, and Arteta knows that if the club could scramble into the Champions League places it would be a huge boost in convincing Aubameyang to commit.
“I think it’s our responsibility to make him feel that this is the right next step in his career,” Arteta told a virtual news conference.